Eavesdrop on history in the making with “The President Calling”

By eSchool News

April 20th, 2004

From American RadioWorks, “The President Calling” is a unique documentary project that unveils taped conversations and meetings held by three of America’s most compelling leaders, giving participants unprecedented access inside the Oval Office. Presidents Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon were famous for bugging their White House offices and tapping their telephones, thus leaving behind thousands of secretly recorded conversations, from the momentous to the mundane. Now students and teachers can use this documentary project to eavesdrop on presidential telephone calls and hear how each man used one-on-one politics to shape history. Notable features include historical photographs and recordings from Nixon’s Watergate debacle to Johnson’s dilemma in Vietnam and Kennedy’s civil-rights crisis in Mississippi.